Losing Control

I hope I haven’t worried any of you too much from the title of this blog. It will make sense in the end, I promise, and it has nothing to do with the security situation or endgame in Iraq. First, I want to update you on my time in Iraq because I promised a more personal blog this month. Operations are coming to a close. Specifics I cannot divulge, but we aren’t doing as much as we were when we first arrived. Now the controlled chaos is much more manageable. My platoon continues to do well and I’m proud of the way they’ve conducted themselves over the past three months. We were a straight-leg line platoon through all of our training and pre-deployment workup, but when we arrived we were handed a set of 4 MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) with communications equipment, counter IED systems, and crew served weapons. Much of this equipment we had never received proper training on and some of it we’d never even seen. This doesn’t even account for the fact that tactics alter a little bit when you’re in vehicles as opposed to beating feet on the ground. The fundamentals never change, but we had to reevaluate our platoon organization. The platoon adapted and overcame and in the process became something altogether different. We’re a rather proficient motorized infantry platoon now, rolling with the best of them. We fit in some dismounted operations but not many.

I continue to spend time working with the local Iraqi Security Force leaders. All of our interactions are focused on them taking the lead in security operations; reassuring them that they don’t need us. It’s much like the old adage “give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime”. I find myself coaching them how to fish and sitting back while I watch them reel in the big ones. I’ve also discovered that if you supply the fishing rod, the bait, the tackle, and the secrets on the best fishing holes you really haven’t taught the man much. Teaching a man to fish is a much more complicated matter than it might first seem. You have to know when to fish, where to fish, what to fish with, and then there is the immense amount of patience that is demanded of any good fisherman. Instant gratification, the drug of our whole society, is not found in fishing. It’s the same story in fighting an insurgency. It’s good to watch the Iraqis develop. There is something inherently satisfying about filling your stomach with your own skill and hard work, and they’re starting to catch on to that.

In much the same fashion I’ve spent more time visiting school headmasters in my AO and working with them on school improvements and projects. Showing them the proper way to file claims with the Ministry of Education and work through their channels of operation is funny sometimes, because they just simply haven’t been shown. No one sat them down and said this is how it works; this is what you need to do in order to request textbooks or whatever. There are a lot of channels of operation within these Government ministries that aren’t being utilized to their full potential because Iraqis are still figuring them out. Soon I will be going out to the schools to drop off the multitude of boxes of school supplies coming from many of you. I thank you for your generous donations. It is a pleasure to be the link between the needs of the Iraqi school children and your gifts.

If I haven’t yet successfully engaged you as the reader, you’re probably still wondering the significance of the title “Losing Control”, and if you had forgot, I’m reminding you now. The title of this blog is actually a misnomer in the fact that you cannot lose that which you do not have. And “control” is definitely something I do not have. I’m learning that I never had it. I thought I did and quite frankly would have told you so, but what I had was nothing really. I had the praises and accolades of men. I had self-confidence reassured by success. I had a piece of paper that attested to my 17-year accrual of knowledge that we call education. I had a platoon that would follow me to hell’s gate and back. BUT, I did not have control. Control is something that cannot be bought, but we certainly try. Billions are spent on various things masquerading as control such as insurance, 5-star safety ratings, security systems, and investment hedging. Yet it all comes crumbling down so fast. This economic crisis is evidence of that. Even more so, Charlie Company recently lost one of its best Sergeants due to a roadside bomb. Life is that fragile. We are all riding on faith whether we realize or not. Where that faith lies is the only question. In something solid like a rock, or something shifting like the sand? And that is a question I cannot answer for you. 

Embracing the Passion,

J